pennys spent

My first suspect was the cable. I have pulled the cable and I could put into reverse with the cable (port engine so cable pushes for reverse) but only a couple of times but no longer. I was told to tilt the drive all the way up and check the cable from there to see if its split. The shaft is straight, i spun it it position so it would have showed. Maybe I can learn to reverse only with one engine Ill be in the classified shopping

formula31

You are of course doing this with the engine running right? You dont want to shift a Bravo without it running.

Panther

have you shifted the drive in forward and reverse while it's on the stand?

tolerances might be off on the new gearset... shift the drive into reverse, take the top cap off and push down on the gear while spinning the driveshaft. If it shifts into gear the tolerances are off... Also, after you shift into reverse you can take a screw drivler or small pry bar and push the cone upwards, if it shifts into gear it probably isn't machined properly or the machining/shimming is off on the case.

pennys spent

I could spin the prop and depending on wether the clucth cone was up or down or the direction i sun the propafter a few rotations it would catch without pressure from the fork. I know when engines idle props will slightly spin I assume this was that and i was not holding any pressure on top of gears.
The case was 65 both top and bottom how would you messure new shims?

Panther

What gearset did you buy? The new bravo's have a shim proceedure and you need a special tool to measure and set it up.

Seems weird that it's catching when you're spinning the prop but not while the engine is running. maybe you need a new clutch shaft?

formula31

With a micrometer, that number is thousands .065"

pennys spent

correct and both new parts were .065. If your case changed from the factory spec of .065 how would determine the new size

Mr Gadgets

Penny's
any time you replace the gear set and bearings the gear lash needs to be checked. Supplement 28 shows the new proceedure from Merc. Although a new gear set should have fallen into place, that is not always true.
Pull the drive off and rotate the input shaft and attempt to shift the drive into fwd and rev and back to Neutral. It should snap into gear and lock in solidly.
If it doesn't then something is a miss in the linkage or fork setup. If the gears are too tight in the gear stack you will be able to feel it while the drive is in neutral and turning the inputshaft. Pushing more or pulling more on the linkage arm will move the cam in tighter and reveal if the gear stack is to tight.

My thought is that you are having cable problems. Pull the drive and look at the cable. Do the above test I described that will reflect where the proplem lies.
Hope this helps.
Dick

pennys spent

Mr Gadgets,
I trimmed the drive all the way up to inspect the cable its pulling away from the bellow instead of pushing into neutral, so this explains why it went a few times then stopped.